Slashdot Mirror


Firefox 2 Alpha 2 Reviewed

pcabello writes "Firefox 2 Alpha 2 was released yesterday. Check what's new in this review at mozillalinks.org with screenshots."

11 of 551 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Memory by apollosfire · · Score: 5, Informative

    As reported before, Firefox does not have memory problems - it has a feature that is very memory intensive. To disable this feature, do the following: 1. type about:config in you address bar 2. scroll down to browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers 3. set its value to 0 (zero)

  2. CoralCDN - just in case by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative
  3. Close button at same tab by omeg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Okay, so now they placed the close tab button on the active tab itself. I've heard of that being planned. I, however, really don't like that myself. Does anyone know if it's possible to turn off? Because if not, I'm not switching.

    There's no reason to not let the user be able to pick the old way of handling a UI functionality that a reasonable amount of people don't agree with.

    1. Re:Close button at same tab by ElleyKitten · · Score: 5, Informative

      Okay, so now they placed the close tab button on the active tab itself. I've heard of that being planned. I, however, really don't like that myself. Does anyone know if it's possible to turn off? Because if not, I'm not switching

      There's an extension for the alpha already that turns it off.

      I like extensions, but sometimes it seems like you have to have 80 of them just to get options that seem like they should be common sense.

      --
      "What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
  4. Re:Memory by Bacon+Bits · · Score: 5, Informative
    So install Leak Monitor. Then you can see the cause of the most severe memory leaks: poorly coded extentions.

    Whenever you close a tab or window and a leak is detected, you'll get a message about it. I used it for a few days and discovered several minor extentions I'd been using were causing some very large leaks.

    --
    The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
  5. Re:Memory by n0-0p · · Score: 4, Informative

    Extensions exist in a global context for the process. They can maintain a permanent reference to objects that are never used again, and should otherwise be freed. They may also create cyclic references, in which one or more objects contains references to each other. This creates a situation where the objects are not referenced by an accessible code path, and the reference count can never drop to zero. The result is a leak, and it is an inherint weakness simple of reference counting garbage collection.

    Even web pages can create circular JavaScript references that result in leaks. FF isn't alone in this area either. IE has always been vulnerable to memory leaks via JavaScript, theirs are just confined to bad pages. However, FF 3 will have a cycle detector that identifies unused cyclic references and frees the objects. But that still won't fix sloppy extensions that hang on to large objects for no goood reason.

    In my experience, Plugins are pretty bad too. They operate outside the scope of the garbage collection and often don't clean up after themselves. For instance, my installation of Acrobat eats up a large chunk memory just for loading, and doesn't let it go after I navigate away from the page. The PDF Download extension helps, but it isn't perfect.

  6. Re:For new users by plover · · Score: 4, Informative
    Currently, there is no way to close a tab without first selecting it.

    I used to think this too, which is why I used to use the TabX extension. However, since at least Firefox 1.5 I've been able to "middle-click" a tab to close it (without giving it focus.) Once I learned that, TabX was gone.

    --
    John
  7. Re:I just went trhough the changelog... by Lisandro · · Score: 5, Informative

    Question is, does Opera do these features better or will Firefox?

        It does. I like Firefox a lot, but i'm not blind - every single feature that it's available in both and works better in Opera. With a fraction of the memory usage, and much faster to boot. Much more stable too - i only had Opera hangning on me a couple of times (both on Windows and Linux) - when it happens, it promptly apologizes and offers you to open the windows you were browsing at the moment of the crash. Priceless!

        Also, Oprera has a shitload of functionality not available on FF or not needing extensions (gesture browsing, searches in the url bar, etc...). Those are the reasons it has been my main browser of choice for years now.

  8. Re:Memory by Mistshadow2k4 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Poorly coded extensions definitely are the biggest memory leak problem. I was using forecastfox for a while and Firefox was leaking like a rusty bucket, even with the sessionistory fix. One day, forecastfox popped up with the latest temperature over an hour after I'd closed Firefox. I uninstalled it right then and Firefox has been pretty well-behaved memory-wise ever since; I haven't seen it's memory usage go over 85 mb.

    Also, this fix helps too:
    1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
    2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
    3. In the box that pops up enter config.trim_on_minimize. Press Enter.
    4. Now select True and then press Enter.
    5. Restart Firefox.

    --
    I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
  9. Re:Did I miss this feature? by corrosive_nf · · Score: 5, Informative

    Tools --> Options --> General. type your favorite urls in the homepage box seperated by |

    http://www.google.com/|http://www.slashdot.org|htt p://www.fark.com

    And when you open firefox, the urls you put in the home page box will be tabbed.

  10. Re:so I'll just keep asking...and getting no answe by The+One+KEA · · Score: 4, Informative

    Darin Fisher did this on the trunk in bug 326273. The complexity of the repair, as you surmised, means that Firefox 3.0 will be the first consumer release to contain these changes.

    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32627 3

    --
    SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618